


can I dream for a few months more?

by cinnamontoastcronch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s14e18 Absence, Episode: s14e19 Jack in the Box, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Jack Kline Whump, Jack Needs a Hug, Soulless Jack Kline, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamontoastcronch/pseuds/cinnamontoastcronch
Summary: 14x18 missing sceneJack visits his nursery.
Relationships: Jack Kline & Kelly Kline
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	can I dream for a few months more?

Jack falls to his knees when he finally lands. Dirt and gravel dig through his jeans. It's painful, he knows that, but it doesn't make him want to explode the way it used to. 

He's tried to ground himself with pain, lately. All those emotions slipping through his fingers; he went back to the one thing he _knew._ The one thing he was sure about being human: it hurt. 

Jack let's the sharp rocks press against his palms, and tries to remember how it felt to be new. To be scared, to be sad. To be anything at all. 

He brushes the bloody gravel off his hands and doesn't flinch.

Jack walks stiffly toward the porch. His limbs feel wooden, like the steps creaking beneath his feet. 

It takes him a long time to open the door. He stands, hand gripped on the doorknob, palm sweating, heart pounding: the symptoms of an emotion he doesn't feel.

He floats through the house like a ghost. He doesn't hear his own footsteps over the ringing in his ears. He climbs the staircase robotically, gripping onto the railing with all he has.

He almost wants to stay in that hallway forever. Not quite anywhere yet. Jack would like to be somewhere. He'd like to be home. But he's not sure where home is right now, so he settles for nowhere instead.

Jack's footsteps grow louder. He's suddenly so aware of every noise he's making. Every shoe squeak, every huff of breath. 

His name on his bedroom door makes everything seem big.

Jack steps into his room like the floor will give out any second. 

It's undisturbed, for the most part. The sheets are gone from the bed (burned, along with her), but the mattress and headboard remain. 

The sunlight, filtered through the blinds, lays gently across the room. 

And all at once the world feels so terrifyingly big. Jack had carved out little places for himself. Jody's house, Lebanon, and all the little motels they've stayed at. Each one became a part of him. Part of that map in his head, that made some sense of the universe. Every highway was an ocean, and every gas station, a continent.

But now, in the wake of perfectly settled dust, on filled coat racks, and worn in sofas, and television sets, the earth threatens to open up and swallow him whole. This life is undisturbed. Jack feels like he's walking through a memory. 

"Mom?" Jack whispers. No one answers but the crickets outside.

Jack stares into the crib, with the yellow baby blanket laying crumpled in the bottom, and feels lost from all things. 

"Mom." He says again, and that's when his brain gets stuck. "Mom, mom, mom, mom, _mommommom_ \--" Jack gasps on a sob, gripping the edge of the crib. His hands leave an imprint in the dust gathered there. 

Jack collapses to the ground, his knees hitting the hardwood floor with a sickening thud. He gives a distant thought to the ache in his wings. _Something_ , he thinks. _That's something._

Through the blur in his eyes, he blinks up at the half finished mural on the wall before him. The hand lettering of his name is shaky. The rainbow has drips in it. There's still an open paint bucket on the floor.

Jack pulls the baby blanket through the bars of the crib and buries his face in it. It smells like home in a way that he can't comprehend.

Jack remembers being born.

Not the details, so much, but the way he felt. He remembers his mother. He remembers love. He remembers that feeling of safety being torn away from him. He remembers being cold, sitting on the same hardwood floor, with his knees to his chest. He could've used a baby blanket then. 

That's all he has now, he supposes: memories. Memories of home, of family, of _feeling._ It's the past now. And how strange it is to have a past at all. Everything feels like the present until you lose something.

Jack lets himself fall onto his side. He clutches the baby blanket with all the strength in his body. 

And for a brief moment, he wants to close his eyes and make the house disintegrate beneath him. Let himself get swept up in the ashes, until he disappears along with them.

But instead he lays there. Beside a crib he's outgrown. A warm, safe bed that never fit him at all. He stays on the floor until his wings have the strength to carry him somewhere else. 

(When the Ma'Lak box slams shut on top of him, Jack holds a yellow baby blanket to his chest. 

If he closes his eyes, it's just another crib.)

**Author's Note:**

> hii I think I'm gonna start posting more short stuff I kept to tumblr :)
> 
> (title from mitskis class of 2013, but the really metal one where screams over a bass chord)
> 
> comments are lovely, stay safe!
> 
> ~cereal


End file.
